A Memory of Ashes
by beekeeperofeden
Summary: Paths cross in the crumbling city of Luskan as Jarlaxle confronts his memories of what happened in Baldur's Gate. A story of betrayal, intrigue, and gratuitous warehouse explosions. Post-Spellplague, pre-Neverwinter Saga.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: After some helpful commentary, I adjusted the timeline for this fic. The edits in this chapter are minor but will have an impact on later updates, so I recommend rereading._

 _Menzoberranzan, 1415 DR_

Matron Quenthel Baenre scowled as she contemplated the empty room. Jarlaxle had been supposed to meet her here five minutes ago, but he was late. She was aware the mercenary had been pursuing interests in some surface city and spending more and more time away from Menzoberranzan, but until now it had not inconvenienced her.

This meeting wasn't terribly important -more a show of power, reminding him who had it and who did not than anything else- but Jarlaxle's disrespect in this was troubling. Bregan D'aerthe had grown significantly in the past decade, gaining more soldiers from Menzoberranzan's disaffected males. Quenthel watched the door and considered her options.

Bregan D'aerthe was growing to be a threat. _Jarlaxle_ was a threat, but not one that she'd care to attack directly, even if he wasn't as invincible as he painted himself to the lesser matrons. She knew _that_ from long experience. She smirked and considered one vulnerability in particular and a plan started to weave itself in her mind. Yes, that would do nicely.

The door opened. Jarlaxle, bold as ever, walked in with clicking boots.

"You summoned me, Matron?" Was that a hint of annoyance in his voice? Whatever he was doing on the surface must have been important, Quenthel thought with satisfaction.

"I just thought you'd be interested to know that we captured those spies from Ched Nasad. You have House Baenre's gratitude for alerting us," she said.

"You could have sent that with a messenger."

"Yes, but I never get to see enough of you, brother. Ten times in as many years?" She shook her head in mock sadness. "Don't tell me you're still angry about that little incident with the Netherese."

Jarlaxle waited for a moment too long before saying "Of course not." Quenthel held in a triumphant smile; with that pause, he might as well have admitted he didn't know what she meant.

"You do remember, don't you?" she teased. Jarlaxle's smile was gone entirely. He didn't respond. Quenthel went on. "You came back to tell me about how the trade went. I forbid you from interfering any further."

"I had no plans to do so, anyway."

"Of course not. Because the human had betrayed you, right?."

"What gave you that notion?" Jarlaxle asked, narrowing his eyes.

"You were betrayed, but it was not by the human."

Jarlaxle didn't say anything.

"You recall stumbling, as you entered the room?"

Jarlaxle frowned, but stayed silent.

"You fell because Kimmuriel was meddling in your mind. He rewrote your memories."

"I doubt that. Kimmuriel knows better than to do such a thing."

"You doubt that he has ambition? Look into your mind and examine your memories of that night. You know I'm telling the truth."

Jarlaxle stormed away. Quenthel smiled; he didn't believe her, but he didn't need to yet. This was only the first fibers of the web, but they were a start. They would hold the whole thing together.

-

Meanwhile on the surface, the stars dotted the sky above Calimport. Barrabus the Gray, however, was in no position to enjoy them, even if he had been so inclined. He was too busy deflecting lunges and bleeding to death on a rooftop.

Half a century ago, Barrabus' employers had wanted to control the local trade. Today, the Netherese were attempting to do the same thing. And now, like then, they had encountered resistance from the local guilds who were already in control of the local trade. Things had changed little in fifty years, Barrabus reflected bitterly.

Barrabus grunted as he blocked another swing from the Raker thug. The Raker was nervous and poorly trained, but he was also a head taller than the assassin. It should have still been an easy fight, but a deep puncture wound in Barrabus' side was slowing him down.

He parried another blow and retreated several steps, pretending to slip on a loose shingle. When the Raker leapt forward, Barrabus shoved a dagger through the man's throat and pushed the dying man off the roof. The body landed with a sharp crack on the stones three stories below.

Barrabus settled into a crouch, checking his side. It was still bleeding heavily. He sighed and considered his options.

He could stay here and bleed to death. It would probably take less than an hour. The tiefling would have to travel several weeks from wherever he was in order to resurrect him again. Barrabus smirked; that would inconvenience Alegni considerably. It would almost be worth having to deal with the tiefling afterwards.

The smirk faded. Almost was the key word there. Alegni had left him alone for almost a year now, counting on the threat of the sword (and the knowledge that they could always find him again) to keep him in line almost a thousand miles away. That threat wouldn't have worked nine years ago. Some things, at least, had changed.

But servitude here, as unbearable as it was, was still better than servitude in proximity to Herzgo Alegni. If he did something the Netherese didn't like, they could only beat him, and they rarely did that.

He realized that his thoughts were going in circles. He shook his head, trying to clear it. If he didn't want to deal with Alegni, he couldn't die on this roof. That meant he had to go somewhere else and stitch up the wound on his side.

He stood up too quickly and his head began to spin. He had lost more blood than he had realized. He took a step forward, steadying himself before he fell over and off the roof. In his condition, a fall like that would kill him.

The building he was on a set of apartments. In the Calimport heat, top-floor rooms were only inhabited by the poorest of the poor or were used for storage. In this part of town, storage was more likely. Walking more slowly than he liked to ensure his balance, Barrabus made his way to the edge of the roof. He would have to swing over the edge onto the window ledges below, but that was the only risky part of the plan, and were it not for the injury, it wouldn't be risky at all.

He gripped the ledge and let himself drop, using momentum to carry himself to the to the window-ledge. Fortunately, the window he had chosen was unlatched, and he didn't have to spend precious moments unlocking it.

He had been right about the contents of the room. Crates were stacked against the wall and dried herbs dangled from the rafters. Barrabus collapsed against one stack of boxes, not bothering to close the window behind him.

He had thread and a curved needle in his belt pouch for exactly this purpose. He set those aside for now, picking up an oil lantern that was next to the stack of crates. He lit the lantern as quickly as possible. For the hundredth time, he cursed the loss of his jeweled dagger; this never would have been necessary when he still had it. Another thing to hate Jarlaxle for, he thought with a scowl.

Still leaving the needle where it lay, he took a long drink from a flask containing brandy. He had started to worry recently that he was too dependent on alcohol to dull the edge of servitude, but he knew that it would help when cleaning out the wound. It would do no good to avoid bleeding to death only to die of infection later, after all.

The wound was small but deep. Barrabus cleaned the edges as well as possible using a rag and a splash of the brandy. The knife that made the wound hadn't been jagged, so he didn't need to cut off skin to make the edges clean enough to stitch. Finally, he ran the needle through the flame to sterilize it and started sewing the wound closed with a grimace.

With the stab wound closed, he could rest a bit. He wasn't expected back at the Netherese headquarters until dawn. He leaned against the crates with a sigh and closed his eyes. The injury was a dull throb in his side. He ran his fingers along the edge of the stitches, making sure that he hadn't missed anything.

No. The stitches were neat and tight. He wouldn't bleed to death in someone's attic, at least not tonight. His hand drifted an inch or two lower, to an old scar. Another stab wound to the side, though that one had gotten magically healed.

Barrabus winced, not at the memory but at the pang of nostalgia that came with it. He tried to chase out the memory by calculating how many years he'd spent in servitude and how painful he'd make Jarlaxle's eventual death in recompense, but blood loss made it hard to think.

-

Jarlaxle paced his office. He knew why Quenthel had said what she had. _She's threatened by Bregan D'aerthe's power. She wants to weaken us._ What better way to do that than to turn its captains against each other?

But that was the problem. It was a such a transparent ploy, so why use it? Why not choose one of any number of stories that would be more plausible, not to mention more likely to gain a response? Why choose a minor incident from a decade ago? He barely even thought about this one anymore. When Quenthel forbid him to interfere further, he had decided that torture and death at the hands of the Netherese was as good a revenge as any for Entreri's betrayal.

Quenthel shouldn't have even known about it. He hadn't even told Athrogate or Kimmuriel, becoming uncharacteristically testy when Athrogate had brought it up. The only ones who knew about it were Jarlaxle and Entreri himself; to any outside observers, it should have looked like Jarlaxle had gone in, captured Entreri, and turned the assassin over without further incident. What was that surface saying? _Two can keep a secret, if one of them is dead._

Regardless of how Quenthel had gotten her information, that didn't explain why she had chosen to use it. Entreri's attack on him was a sore spot, but as far as lies went, it was poorly constructed and poorly chosen.

Unless it were true. If it were true, then Quenthel would have every reason to use that story. After all, if it were true, all the evidence would support it. If it were true, Jarlaxle would have no choice but to retaliate against his co-captain, leading to weakness within the organization. If it were true, he had left Entreri to die with no...

Jarlaxle shook his head. No. It was just a story. A desperate ploy from a desperate matron. He had heard thousands of them in his long life and this one was no different.

It couldn't be. He stopped pacing, tapped his fingers against the surface of his desk, thinking. He needed to go back to Luskan anyway. He could speak to Kimmuriel once he was there.

-

The sun was only just peeking over the edge of the desert when Barrabus got back to the building the Netherese had staked out as their headquarters. It was a cheap brick building in Dock Ward. They had tried to set up something more appropriate to the thieves' guild they were trying to be, but the underworld of Calimport had learned from its drow infestation. It had recoiled from anything that carried even the whiff of outside influence. The Netherese' last three headquarters had been burned down or blown up before they moved to the far less advantageous location near the docks.

"You're late," said Alasus. He was Barrabus' handler, a sour bureaucrat who resented being sent to deal with criminals in a hot sandy city. He appreciated Barrabus' expertise, though, and tended to treat him as a local agent rather than as a messenger boy or recalcitrant soldier. Fifty years ago Barrabus would have resented such an insult to his pride; these days, he'd learned to take what scraps he could get.

"Someone warned them I was coming." Barrabus lifted his cloak, allowing Alasus to see the tear in his shirt and the bloody stitches under it. "I assumed you didn't want search the alleyways for my corpse. Was I wrong?"

Alasus sniffed. That was as close as he'd get to admitting Barrabus was right.

"You're going to Luskan," he said instead. Barrabus raised an eyebrow.

"Luskan?"

"Yes, you may have heard of it. Cold, lots of ships?"

"What's in Luskan?"

"Some of our forces that were scouting Neverwinter had a deserter." Alasus pushed a letter across the surface of his desk. "They're worried he'll try to sell his information to the highest bidder. But they've had a hellish time trying to find him and they have scouting to complete. You're to find him and kill him."

Barrabus nodded and picked up the paper; it had a name and short description. He'd done more with less. "Who am I reporting to?" he asked. There was always someone around to remind him that his time was not his own.

"We don't have an agent in Luskan so I've been ordered to see how well you perform without a handler. I expect you back with the deserter's head before spring." Alasus paused and glanced at Barrabus. "Metaphorically, I mean. I don't want a bloody skull on my desk when you get back."

Barrabus realized he had a fluttering feeling in his stomach that he didn't recognize. He didn't think it was freedom, but it may have been a distant relative. Fear, perhaps. "When do I leave?"

"As soon as the next north-bound boat leaves port, preferably."


	2. Interlude: Volatile I

_Author's note (12/2/15) : A note to returning readers: after some helpful critique, I've revised the fic's timeline quite a bit. My outline stayed the same, but important details and the emotional impact of such are likely to be rather different. As such, I'd recommend going back and rereading the first chapter. The edits there are minor, but will have an impact on later chapters._

 _Calimport, 1373_

Artemis Entreri smiled as he leaned against a wall in the Copper Ante. In the past few years, he had found what might be termed an equilibrium. Even if his most recent trip to Memnon had disturbed it a bit, it hadn't destroyed it completely. It was a new sensation, realizing that something going wrong wouldn't destroy his life and require him to rebuild.

The dark elves' abrupt withdrawal from the Calimport underworld had left chaos and distrust. Much of the latter had been directed at those known to be friendly with the "Basadoni" guild, including Dwahvel and the Copper Ante. Guilds who wouldn't have dreamed of attacking such a useful source of information before had started to keep their distance, while previously friendly rivals started eyeing them for weakness. Anyone less competent that Dwahvel Tiggerwillies would have found herself in a most precarious position. Instead she had made the best of it and, when Entreri had returned to a hostile Calimport for the second time in a decade, she welcomed him with a smile and a crossbow pointed at his chest.

As much as a few well-chosen assassinations might have put her problems to rest, they would have roused even worse ones. So he worked mostly outside the boundaries of Calimport, doing information gathering rather than assassinations. His information joined the stream of intelligence that had made Dwahvel so valuable to the guilds in the past and ever so slowly, the threats began to cease.

He was waiting in her office when she got there. "You know," she said. "It'd be more of a help if you'd tell me where all the holes in my security are. Not all my unplanned visitors are going to be as friendly as you."

Entreri shrugged and pointed to the stack of papers he'd left on her desk. "If you wanted them fixed, you'd find them yourself."

Dwahvel glanced at him. Usually this was where he made a comment about how, if she was so concerned about assassination attempts, maybe she should have someone nearby. It was as close as he'd get to admitting he worried. There were dark circles under his eyes. She frowned.

"You were gone longer than usual," Dwahvel said. "How was Memnon?"

"It was itself. A few small thieves' guilds have formed, but none of them have the power to affect anything outside of their streets right now."

"They'll learn. Anything else?"

He didn't respond for a while. Then he spoke.

"Jarlaxle tried to contact me. Or some of his agents did. They wanted me to go back to Bregan D'earthe." He scowled and looked out the window. "They were insistent. They brought Calihye with them and threatened to kill her if I refused."

Dwahvel nodded. Entreri had told her about his travels with Jarlaxle, including the story of the bounty hunter who had tried to kill him. She hadn't realized the woman was still alive. Judging from his face, neither had Entreri.

"I killed them, rescued her. We talked." Dwahvel thought it likely they had done more than 'talked,' but she left it alone. Entreri shook his head and kept talking. "She vanished. I searched Memnon, but there was nothing."

He didn't have to say more than that.

"I'll have my agents to tell me if they see a beautiful half-elf with a scar," she said. Entreri nodded to her.

"I cannot stay here," he said.

"True. We're recovering, but after that business with the drow, the other guilds would still burn the Copper Ante down around my ears if they learned I was harboring you."

"I do not know if drow will come here, either. If they threatened Calihye..."

"If they come back here I'll make sure the entire city knows it. From what you've told me of Jarlaxle, he's too pragmatic to take that sort of risk."

"I should still leave as soon as possible."

"If you're looking for suggestions, I have been hearing some strange rumors from the Anauroch Desert. But before you do—" she pulled out a letter from one of the many hidden compartments of her desk. "Someone's been asking about you. I don't think they're local."

He took the letter from her and started reading. "Do they want to kill me or recruit me?"

"It's not clear. But according to a friend of mine, they've been lurking around the docks."

Entreri smirked and tapped the edge of the letter, thinking. Dwahvel pointed at the bottom of the paper.

"They're offering quite a bit of gold for information on your whereabouts, by the way."

"Are they? You should collect on that before someone else does."

"And where are you?"

"You don't know where I am now, but a reliable source says that I will be on the western edge of the Trade Ward in five hours."

The sky was a blaze of red and orange as Entreri walked along the busy street in Trade Ward. The sun was setting, which meant that the shadows were getting longer and longer. More places for his mysterious stalkers to hide.

For the first time in years, he pulled his cloak back and let the hilt of the jeweled dagger show. In an hour, half the guilds in Calimport would know that Artemis Entreri was in the city. In an two hours, the other half would know and there would potential assassins trying to hunt him down.

He didn't plan to stay in the city that long. His eyes flickered across the crowd, watching for reactions, for people running away or leveling a crossbow.

There. Five men stepped out of the shadows, studying him with intent. They were all grayish in the fading sunlight. Entreri deliberately looked at them and made eye contact with the closest one. Then he let his eyes widen —let them think he was scared!— and turned to run into an alleyway. Behind him he could hear offended murmurs and shouts as the group of men gave chase. There were more shouts in a language he didn't recognize. One of the men was barking orders to the others, probably to split up, try to corner him.

He didn't run too quickly. Even after years away, Calimport was his city. He could think of twenty ways to lose the men behind him with ease, but that wouldn't give him the information he needed.

After leading them halfway across the ward, he was back at the warehouse he'd chosen for this meeting. He stopped, made sure they'd seen him, then ran in, slamming the door as loudly as possible.

It was a square sandstone building with a canvas roof. Some merchant was using it to store grain and cheap liquor, so there weren't any guards inside. Night had fallen, so the inside of the warehouse was completely dark.

His hunters came in the door that he hadn't used. They didn't seem bothered by the lack of light. There were only four of them, now, all of them panting from the exertions of the chase.

"Artemis Entreri," said the first one, the leader. "I know you're in here, so stop hiding."

"Hiding? I just thought this would be a good place to chat." Entreri leaned against the door, arms crossed. The man whirled to face him.

"You have something that isn't yours. We've come to retrieve it."

"You'll have to be more specific. I've stolen many things." Entreri thought he knew what it was, though.

"The sword." The man smiled, showing crooked teeth. "But be reasonable. I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement. Why meet with us if you aren't willing to make a deal."

Entreri shrugged. "I wanted to know who was following me. Now I know. You have nothing that I want."

The man opened his mouth to respond —most likely with a threat of some kind— but Entreri had already run to the door. He turned just long enough to wave and cut a rope that he had placed there hours earlier, before Dwahvel's agent had passed along word of his whereabouts.

The rope dropped a weight that pulled a knife along the edges of several bags of flour hanging from the ceiling. Darkvision couldn't see through the white fog that covered the room, and Entreri ran out, barring the door behind him as the men coughed and tried to yell.

He didn't stop to listen. Instead, he knocked a lantern onto the ground in front of the door and ran like every demon in the hells was after him. The flame from the lantern ventured out and found the trail of lamp oil that had led back to the warehouse. It followed the oil under the crack in the door.

The explosion was audible; trapped within stone walls but not confined by a ceiling, the flames flew upward in an hot gust of light.

Less than an hour later, Artemis Entreri was on a fast boat out of the Calimport docks, mourning the loss of his newly found equilibrium. But at the same time... it was good to have a challenge, a direction again. He looked back at the city with a grin, watching as the distant flames warmed the night sky like an early dawn.


	3. Interlude: Volatile II

_Waterdeep_ , _1373 DR_

Jarlaxle and Kimmuriel had met for their usual discussion of Bregan D'aerthe. In the past four years, Jarlaxle had only partially returned to his position as captain of the mercenaries. He occasionally returned to Menzoberranzan, took meetings, sent agents on missions, but he had refused to cease his travels on the surface. He had informed Kimmuriel that he was investigating further business opportunities, but they both knew that was only, at best, a partial truth.

But it was progress. Kimmuriel knew that Jarlaxle would have to return to the band eventually. But he would prefer to return to his own studies sooner rather than later. Kimmuriel had started considering plans to draw Jarlaxle back to Menzoberranzan; his first idea had failed, but this time he wouldn't rely on the irrational, unpredictable variables that humans tended to present.

Today's meeting was in a inn room in Waterdeep. Where his previous travels had taken him far to the east and the north, Jarlaxle had kept his adventures with Athrogate close to the Sword Coast in recent years.

Kimmuriel finished his summary of Bregan D'aerthe's most recent jobs. Since he and Jarlaxle were effectively co-captains, it was important to keep each other apprised of such things. Human armies had been known to attack each other based on poor communication, after all.

" **—** and the mining operations near the edges of Blingdenstone don't seem to have drawn any attention yet," Kimmuriel said, finishing up his report.

"Good. And what about Entreri?" Kimmuriel blinked at the rapid change of subject, then withheld a sigh. Jarlaxle had suggested that they keep the assassin under surveillance. _He's worked with us enough that our enemies might approach him for information,_ he had said. _If they do, we'll know. No sense in getting caught by surprise._

"We're not the only ones following him," Kimmuriel said with a scowl. His suggestion of killing the human and eliminating vulnerability from that corner had been ignored entirely. "He fled some Netherese agents in Calimport three weeks ago. We've noticed others in places that he's been, but they don't seem to be having much luck."

Jarlaxle laughed. "Of course they aren't. They've barely had a year to relearn the material plane. Catching Artemis Entreri in his own city would require more practice than that."

"They'll have plenty of opportunity. They're sure to catch him eventually."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not." He glanced at Kimmuriel. "How should we react, if they get too close?"

"Not at all. We have neither the resources nor the incentive to get into a war with the Netherese."

"We'd be preserving a potential future asset from certain death. That seems like an excellent incentive."

"We'd be preserving a _current liability_ from _potential_ death. The Netherese would be doing us a favor if they killed him."

If Kimmuriel hadn't been watching for it, he wouldn't have noticed Jarlaxle's lips tighten for a brief second before returning to his normal, carefree grin.

"As usual, you are focusing too much on survival and not enough on potential gain."

But to Kimmuriel's relief, he dropped the subject any way.


	4. Chapter 2

Kimmuriel studied Jarlaxle as the other mercenary shuffled through a stack of reports, glancing at each one before moving onto the next. Jarlaxle had activated his eye patch, keeping the psionicist out of his mind, but he was uncharacteristically quiet. Normally, Kimmuriel would be parrying remarks about his sour demeanor by now.

"Matron Baenre had an interesting tale for me a tenday ago." Jarlaxle said, his visible eye intent on Kimmuriel. This particular office was in the upper story above a tavern. In the room below them, it sounded like a fight had started. Kimmuriel had no doubt the dwarf was involved and his suspicion was confirmed almost immediately by ringing laughter.

Jarlaxle had paused to listen and hadn't continued his statement. Kimmuriel raised an eyebrow. "Matron Baenre?"

Jarlaxle smiled, but it seemed insincere, which Kimmuriel thought odd. By allowing Kimmuriel to see the insincerity, he was making a point of some kind. Perhaps he was attempting to be intimidating, but it was unusual for Jarlaxle to use anger rather than confidence for that purpose. Perhaps he was just trying to throw Kimmuriel off-balance by acting abnormally?

"Yes. She tried to convince me that you had rearranged my memories during that affair with the Netherese."

Kimmuriel blinked twice, then smirked. "That is quite a tale. What could she hope to gain by feeding you so foolish a lie?"

Internally, Kimmuriel was cursing. Jarlaxle had been trying to throw him off-balance and had succeeded admirably. He had been so distracted by Jarlaxle's facial expression he hadn't thought about what Quenthel might have said to Jarlaxle, and so had been caught entirely off-guard by the reference. He had managed to recover, but looking at the cold look in Jarlaxle's eye, he knew he hadn't been quite fast enough.

"Perhaps she was hoping I would kill you," Jarlaxle said coldly. In the room below, wood scraped against stone and people yelled. If a fight broke out up here, no one would hear it.

"If you did that, Bregan D'earthe would be severely weakened," Kimmuriel said. He realized that he was stating the obvious and stifled a wince, knowing Jarlaxle would see the delaying tactic for what it was. "That would benefit her right now."

Jarlaxle exhaled slowly. The fingers of his right hand curled, as if to summon a dagger. "Then it seems we're at an impasse," he said.

 _If you kill me, some of the band will turn against you and you will no longer have a psionicist,_ Kimmuriel thought. _If I kill you, most of the group will mutiny. Bregan D'earthe will fall apart and I'll be a houseless rogue again._ An impasse, indeed.

Jarlaxle kept speaking. His voice was iron. "You'll restore my memories. All of them."

"Why?" Kimmuriel asked, despite having few objections to this; there was nothing more damning in the memories than the fact that Kimmuriel had tampered with them in the first place, but simply acquiescing would be showing weakness. Jarlaxle's visible eye narrowed, though whether in suspicion or anger Kimmuriel couldn't tell.

"The next time I speak to Quenthel, I would rather she not have any nasty surprises for me."

There was little that could be said to argue with that. "Very well. You'll need to remove your eye patch."

Jarlaxle didn't move for a moment. Kimmuriel scowled. "You'll need to allow me in your mind to fully reestablish your access to those memories. You could probably sort out which ones are fake, but it would take months, perhaps years. Nor would it be as thorough. You would miss some."

Below them, the fighting had died down. The silence was heavy between them. Kimmuriel sighed.

"If you look at the memories you already know are false, you'll notice they're-" Kimmuriel searched for a word. He'd never had to explain this to a non-psionicist before. "They're slippery, hard to focus on. That will be the case with any changes I make to your mind."

Jarlaxle nodded and removed his eyepatch. His eyes didn't leave Kimmuriel the entire time.

"You should sit." Kimmuriel dragged a wooden chair closer to the desk. "This will take a few hours."

* * *

Barrabus the Gray took in a deep breath as he stepped onto the Luskan docks. The brisk salt-sea air wasn't enough to entirely banish the the sewage and smoke drifting in from the river. Moonlight rippled on the water and boards creaked underfoot. Despite not knowing where he would go first, he began to walk.

Luskan had changed since Barrabus had last seen it. There was a gaping hole in the skyline where the Hosttower had been. Most people walking by seemed to avoid walking directly through the rubble, prefering to walk around even when it took them far out of the way. In a city where goblins lurked in the shadows and demon-worshippers preached freely in the moonlight, no one was quite comfortable enough to walk over the ruins of the Hosttower.

Barrabus had heard about the explosion and about the civil war that had followed. Luskan, which had been an icy, grimy pisspot even before the Spellplague, was now more wretched than it had been before. Although the High Captains had largely survived the war and the Spellplague, they no longer held the authority they once had. Luskan ruled itself by the tooth and claw and no one claimed to tame it. It was, then, the perfect place for a Netherese deserter to hide.

He had actually expecting it to be much worse. From the rumors, the nominal ruler of Luskan changed with the tide and the crumbling roads and bridges spoke to that truth, as did the swarming mass of activity that rattled the moonlit streets. There were muggings and and brawls in what seemed like every alleyway and a pale man in black robes definitely tried to convince him of the benefits of demon-worship before Barrabus had glowered him away. But despite all that, people who might have otherwise been at each others' throats for supplies were managing to coexist. As the rosy fingers of dawn reached over the city walls, the chaos dimmed down into something almost orderly.

The same straggling line of farmers that were found, in some variation, outside every city at sunrise, wandered through the gates with their carts of turnips. Burly men and women with gnarled hands still hauled nets onto their dinghies and pushed out to sea. The farmers were a little more nervous and fishers more gruff than in most cities, but they were still a sign that the city itself, tattered and chaotic though it may be, was functioning. There was more murder and petty crime than expected in a "civilized" city, but it wasn't the frenzied convulsions of a city about to eat itself alive.

To anyone else, this semblance of peace might have spoken to the resilience and underlying goodness of humanity as a whole. Barrabus the Gray knew better than that. He saw the vibrant chaos of Luskan and realized that there had to to be an underlying cause, some level of authority that was keeping the city from turning on itself.

The ship he'd come in on had docked at midnight, Barrabus realized. In any other city, that meant smugglers. Why would someone bother smuggling unless there was somebody enforcing the import tariffs?

Whoever was keeping Luskan from self-destructing would, by necessity, know who was coming and going. If he didn't want to comb through every filthy tavern and dilapidated shack in the City of Tattered Sails to find his deserter, Barrabus would have to find them and ask.

* * *

Jarlaxle opened his eyes as Kimmuriel pulled his hands away from his forehead. He frowned. He felt off-balance, like there was someimportant lingering just out of his sight, but nothing else seemed to have changed.

"That was it?"

Kimmuriel's lip twitched.

"I assumed you would want me interfering as little as possible. I simply removed the block and made the false memories easier for you to identify." He shrugged. "I could go through and make you relive the actual chain of events, if you'd prefer that. But I am told it's less traumatic if you rediscover them on your own."

"Did you not say that would take months?"

"It would have taken months for you to undo the work I did suppressing them. I took care of that step. It should only take about a tenday for you to work through the rest."

"A tenday?"

"Yes. You might..." Kimmuriel grimaced "...feel strange. Resting will help."

Jarlaxle studied his lieutenant. If Kimmuriel wanted him out of the way while he arranged a coup, this would be one way to do it. He didn't think that Kimmuriel would do that. But he hadn't thought that Kimmuriel would break into his mind for Quenthel Baenre, either.

But if that's what he was up to, so much the better if he thought Jarlaxle was recuperating. Jarlaxle put up his normal grin and stood up. Kimmuriel tensed, clearly recognizing the front for what it was, clearly nervous about what it meant. That was almost enough to make Jarlaxle feel better. Not quite, but it helped him keep his smile until he'd left the building.

He made it all the way to his bed before his smile fell. In the walk back, he'd found himself strangely exhausted. Whether it was the confrontation or Kimmuriel's work he wasn't sure. He collapsed into sleep, dreaming of fire and smoke.

* * *

Finding Luskan's peace-keepers, as it turned out, still involved a lot of combing through filthy taverns and dilapidated shacks. Whoever was keeping the peace, they were staying quiet about their influence. That meant it wasn't the High Captains or any local temples. With that in mind, Barrabus looked for the next likely culprit: thieves guilds.

Any information he had on Luskan's thieves guilds was woefully out of date, so he'd have to start from scratch. He began by looking for likely headquarters that such an organization might use.

It would have to be large enough to house supplies for the guild, along with any profits they might make. It would need to be inconspicuous, yet secure from attack. And it would usually be near a central hub. It might have a secondary function acting to disguise it, such as a tavern or an inn.

There were a large number of buildings in Luskan that fit that description. The first one he tried seemed to be a brothel. So was the second. The third was being held by a bunch of earnest-faced men with weapons; from their conversation, Barrabus guessed they were the remains of Luskan's city guard who had holed up together for safety. That was interesting, but not useful. The fourth was guarded too obviously to be Luskan's secret peace-keepers, but Barrabus broke into it anyway, just in case; it turned out to be a very stubborn merchant company trying to hold on to their records.

The fifth building seemed, from an outside glance, to be entirely deserted. Barrabus made a mental note to look more closely at it when the sun was down. But high noon was a bad time to break into a building and he needed to sleep.

Luskan still had functional inns. He paid for a room at the nearest one and collapsed into unconsciousness. If he had dreams, he was lucky enough not to remember them.

–

For a prompt a little while ago, I wrote a quick scene with Kimmuriel's pov that takes place after this chapter. There's a link to it on my profile. (At least, there should be. If it didn't work, give me a shout and I'll try to fix it.)


	5. Chapter 3

_Luskan, 1415 DR_

Jarlaxle woke up and instantly regretted it. Sharp pains flashed through his skull like lightning and he began to understand why Kimmuriel had suggested he take some time off while he recovered.

It was an hour after sunset. Normally, he would be starting his day: checking reports, meeting with Kimmuriel or Athrogate, giving a hundred different orders on how to deal with different situations, wrangling their local allies into cooperation for the thousandth time. It never ended and he needed to be at his best. Right now, Jarlaxle wasn't sure he could beat a drowned rat in a battle of wits, much less the hungry captains of Luskan who were waiting for him to make a wrong move.

He sat up, letting the blankets pool around his lap. The room was stifling and hot. He went directly to the window and leaned out, letting the cold wind of late winter move across his face. In the street below, shadow-figures moved briskly. Jarlaxle watched them dodge the lantern light and wondered how many of them were his people. It was hypnotic, until a loud crash from the alley below startled him. How long, he wondered, had he been watching as traffic passed?

He shook his head, then winced as that made the headache worse. The next hour passed in a fugue. Walking made him feel dizzy and lightheaded. He was shaking. There was a mysterious hissing noise somewhere in his apartment that he couldn't locate, no matter how often he circumnavigated the walls.

Perhaps worst of all, he didn't remember anything differently. There was no flash of realization, no sudden flood of his proper memories. The only thing suggesting the inconsistency in his mind was what Quenthel had told him and Kimmuriel had confessed to. Perhaps he needed to go through and find the incorrect memories himself?  
With trepidation, he tried to focus on that night in Baldur's Gate, to replay the events as he recalled them. It hurt, just as it always did, an empty ache in his chest. Suddenly he desired nothing more than think about something else, anything else. Was this what Kimmuriel had meant by 'slippery'?

Perhaps food and a distraction would do him more good than simply sitting. He pulled on his boots and eyepatch. Uncomfortably aware of how underwhelming he looked but needing to get out of the apartment, he crept down the stairs and into the dark, icy streets.

* * *

Barrabus studied the building from the alley across the street. Despite being in good condition and not having guards, there were no squatters. That meant the locals knew better than to mess with it and it belonged to someone who didn't want to mark their lair to the outside eye. Perhaps the owner of the building was notoriously vicious about trespassers on their property, but even if it wasn't Luskan's mysterious shadow-rulers, whoever it was would likely have information that Barrabus did not.

It was an old warehouse and there were no windows on the first floor and only a single large door facing the street. He'd be better off going into the alleyway and climbing to reach the higher floor, which did have windows. Just because he couldn't see any guards didn't mean they weren't there, so he still lurked in the shadows as he climbed up the side of the seemingly abandoned building. The building was old and the clay bricks were crumbling in places, leaving easy footholds as he scaled the wall. When he was halfway up, a loud group of partiers passed the building, waving lanterns and yelling obscenities to amuse themselves. He pressed himself flat against the wall, knowing that if one of them glanced into the alleyway and up ten feet, he would be visible and vulnerable against the wall. But they passed without a yell. He shook his head and continued to climb until he reached one of the second-floor windows.

The window he reached had a broken pane of glass and was unlocked. Too easy. He pulled himself up onto the windowsill and looked along the inside of the latch. If he hadn't been looking for it, he wouldn't have noticed the needle, slick with some kind of poison, just along the window latch. He carefully removed it and pocketed it for examination later. It would be good to know if the owners of this building prefered to kill or capture their intruders, but he didn't wish to find out through personal experience.  
With the window defanged and no one watching, he opened the window and crept into the darkened warehouse.

* * *

Jarlaxle found himself following cheerful groups of people as they moved through the streets. In the dark, with his hat enshadowing his features, many people seemed not to notice that he was a drow. He flitted from group to group, feeling distant and oh so tired. At one point the crowd he was shadowing passed one of Bregan D'aerthe's outposts and he considered breaking off, going inside. It would give him a chance to breathe.

But despite the windows being dark, there was no guarantee that the outpost would be deserted and he wasn't sure if he could maintain his usual attitude if he encountered one of his soldiers. Any rumor that the ever-cheerful leader of Bregan D'aerthe was absent-minded or vulnerable would fly through the organization, doing irreparable harm. With some regret, he left the warehouse behind and abandoned this group of people to walk.

* * *

Barrabus started by wandering the building, getting a sense of his surroundings. The lower layer was acting as a warehouse of some kind, filled with crates. He pried one open; it was filled with jars of fruit preserves. The upper layer was a maze of smaller rooms, all dark. Despite the windows, there were unlit lanterns interspersed through each room. He checked one. The glass was cool and the oil was congealing, which suggested it had been unlit for most of the day. Barrabus frowned. This office was probably more busy at night and its usual residents could arrive at any moment.

He found the largest desk and began to search it, not caring if he disturbed the items in the drawers. If they were competent, they would notice the missing needle and realize someone had broken in. Seeing how they reacted to an unknown intruder would be more useful than keeping his presence a secret.

One drawer contained a series of leather-bound ledgers. He smirked in satisfaction. An operation of any size would need to keep records. Perhaps he wasn't wasting his time here, after all.

The moon was new and the room was too dark to read the ledger. He found a corner that wasn't in view of any windows and lit a lantern. To his surprise, the lantern's glass shutters were tinted a deep blue, dimming the light from the flame. He could still read by it, but it wouldn't show nearly as brightly.

Something about that snagged at his mind, but he left it alone and began to examine the ledger he had chosen. He wasn't expecting to be able to decipher it; it would almost certainly be in code. But he might be able to recognize the code. If he did, that would tell him how deeply the organization valued their secrecy and possibly how they passed along information.

He opened the ledger and his jaw dropped.

The code was familiar. He had learned it decades ago, even helped adapt it to certain things on the surface. This one was slightly different - it had switched to the surface base-ten number system, rather than the base-eight favored by drow. Certain symbols were unfamiliar. But he knew it.

Bregan D'aerthe was in Luskan. Perhaps they were even the mysterious force holding the city together, though that would be a significant step up from their escapades in Calimport. He bit his lip. In Calimport, Bregan D'aerthe had faced significant competition. Perhaps not in Luskan.

Kimmuriel had been in charge of Bregan D'aerthe, the last time Barrabus had heard of it. But Kimmuriel would never be able to set up the mercenaries so well in a human city, nor would he want to. That meant...

 _Jarlaxle is in Luskan._

His heart was beating faster. Tucking the ledger into his cloak, he blew out the lantern and left the building as quietly as he had entered it, taking care to close the window. They would notice the intrusion, but not until they returned to the building. An open window would be an invitation to investigate and an advertisement to any rivals they had that someone was interfering, and he wasn't ready for that level of complication.

He needed space to think.

* * *

Jarlaxle stumbled against a wall. Unsure of whether he had tripped, he stayed leaning against the stone for a while. It was cool against his skin, a welcome respite from the feverish heat that seemed to be fogging his brain.

There was a snowflake on his nose. When had it started to snow?

The sky was warming to a soft gray and he realized he wandered for the entire night. It was cold, but he hadn't brought his cloak. He still didn't feel like he needed it. But he was tired.

He pushed himself off the wall and trudged home. He didn't bother removing his boots before laying down. He wasn't going to sleep just yet. He'd try to remember again. To focus. But every time he tried to think about Baldur's Gate, his mind recoiled. He'd get distracted by something else, or he'd get stabbing pains in his head, or his chest would start to ache in the same empty way that he'd previously associated with grief.

Kimmuriel had clearly understated how difficult this would be. Jarlaxle closed his eyes, tried to grasp the memories that eluded him, but before he had succeeded, he fell into unconsciousness.

He dreamed of bells.


	6. Interlude: Alarm

A story doesn't exist until it is read; knowing that people are reading it and want to know what happens next helps considerably with my otherwise scattered focus. So this chapter is dedicated to unitcircle, for their relentless encouragement and for reminding me that this story exists.

 _Berdusk, 1400 DR_

The dull stone building fronts and stolid wooden pillars were dressed up for the turn of the century. People wove through the streets with lanterns and garlands of flowers, swirling here and there in a frenzy of celebration. There was a band on the street corner—entirely percussionists, with tiny silver bells tied around their wrists and dangling from their clothes. The deep booms and rapid clatters were offset by the small chiming; the bells were apparently harmonized to each other, meaning that no matter how drunk the musicians got, they would never go off-key. The worst they could do would be to lose their rhythm.

Jarlaxle sat on the edges, watching it all. Athrogate had looked surprised when he'd claimed an unoccupied table on the edges of the town square and even more so when Jarlaxle had pushed him away into the pulsing crowd. But Jarlaxle hadn't danced like this since he was a student at Melee-Magthere. He had no intention of starting again now.

"Mind if I join you?"

Jarlaxle looked up. A tiefling stood at the edge of his table, blocking the light. Jarlaxle grinned.

"I would appreciate the company," he said. _Are you business or pleasure_ , he wondered. From the way the tiefling was sitting—straight-backed, calm, and possibly the only sober person in the room—Jarlaxle guessed a business proposal was incoming. An offer of work, perhaps. He and Athrogate had just finished their survey of the nearby hills, too, so he'd probably take it.

The tiefling seemed unworried as well; either this was an appealing, uncomplicated job or he was just very arrogant. Jarlaxle reserved judgement on which it was for the moment.

"Herzgo Alegni." The tiefling extended his hand. Jarlaxle shook it. "I work for the Netherese."

"Ah." The shifting lantern light had hidden the grey tint of the tiefling's skin, but it was obvious once Jarlaxle thought to look for it. He scanned the crowd for Athrogate, hoping the dwarf was doing something that would require him to intervene and cut the conversation short. Alas, no such luck.

"You've been difficult to find." Alegni frowned at him as if he were expecting Jarlaxle to apologize for the inconvenience.

"Not at all." If he couldn't escape, he'd have to deflect. He leaned back and put his boots on the table. "My companions have been known to complain of how very conspicuous I am."

"And yet, we've been trying to deal with you for months without success."

Jarlaxle shrugged. "If you can't find a single man with all of your armies to help you, I hardly see how that is my fault."

He nearly laughed out loud at the warring emotions on Alegni's face. Anger at the insult and confusion about the potential double-meaning. Professionalism beat them both.

"The Netherese army has prioritized other strengths. This is why we'd like to hire you to find someone for us. An old friend of yours." Alegni leaned forward, trying to make use of his bulk and height to intimidate. It would have worked better if he'd been standing. Jarlaxle took a sip of his drink and pretended not to notice.

"You will have to be more specific. I have many friends."

"This one has something that belongs to us."

Jarlaxle tapped his lips for a moment, pretending to think. He kept it up slightly longer than it took for Alegni to become annoyed and uncomfortable with the silence. "Ah! You are referring to Artemis Entreri."

"Yes," Alegni gritted out.

"Is he not dead of old age by now? Humans die so quickly. If you wait another decade I am sure he'll wither away and drop your lost item at your feet." In the background, the musicians had switched to something with a faster tempo; the lower drums were loud enough to make the table vibrate.

Alegni's lip curled up in a disdainful snarl. The Netherese had to know that Entreri wasn't aging as a normal human would, but they didn't know why. "I do not care to wait that long," he said.

"Then I cannot help you. As you said, we _were_ friends. I haven't seen the man in years."

"You have resources we do not. You could find him easily enough."

"Ah, but those resources are tied up in other projects." Jarlaxle lifted his hands helplessly. "I would like to help you, but I am simply too busy right now. I wish you the best of luck, though."

"Shift them." Alegni smirked. "We can pay _very_ well."

For a moment, Jarlaxle considered the wealth that might be in Netherese coffers. He named a price and Alegni made a high noise in the back of his throat.

"That's preposterous," Alegni eventually said. "For a single human?"

"For the _location_ of a single human," Jarlaxle said. "You'd have to catch him yourself."

Alegni pursed his lips and named a different number, considerably lower. Jarlaxle raised one eyebrow.

"I am not bargaining."

"Angering the Netherese Empire could be very unhealthy for you," Alegni said, baring his teeth.

"I can see that it's certainly been a massive inconvenience for Artemis Entreri."

"You would mock us?"

"You're being very mockable." Jarlaxle shrugged. "Meet my price or get out."

Alegni stood up, moving the table several inches. Jarlaxle took a sip of his drink.

"This is not the last you'll hear from me," he warned before stalking off. As he vanished into the crowd, Jarlaxle felt a weight disappear from his chest.

"Perhaps." But the brief shadow of melancholy had gone. He scanned the dancing crowd as the rhythm of the bells pulled at his feet.


	7. Chapter 4

Note: Many thanks to tzig for their assistance with language in the first scene!

* * *

The sun rose bleak and sickly over the icy Luskan cobblestones, washing everything in pale dishwater-grey light. Barrabus the Grey had not slept.

As he had bolted through the streets the previous night, clutching the one book he'd taken, he'd barely paid attention to his surroundings, distracted by the maelstrom of emotions that seemed to lurk at the edges of his awareness. Plans for finding the deserter had been drowned out by a single, pulsing thought.

 _Jarlaxle is here._

The shingles under his feet were slick with frost, but he didn't notice or care.

The last time he'd seen Jarlaxle, the mercenary had been behind a line of Netherese soldiers. He'd made eye contact with... not Barrabus. Artemis, still. He'd made eye contact, tipped his hat in what might have been a signal or a final farewell. In the decade that had passed, Barrabus had realized it was the latter.

Occasionally he'd wondered if Jarlaxle was dead, but dismissed the idea. And now he knew for certain. No one but Jarlaxle would be keeping Bregan D'aerthe on the surface.

 _Jarlaxle is here._

A brief flash of relief knocked out his breath before he pushed it away. And then, like a drowning man clinging onto the only piece of wreckage he could find, he grasped the one part of the maelstrom he recognized. It was comforting in its familiarity, and he used it as a shield against more insidious suggestions lurking deeper in the storm. And so his world had narrowed to a single, knife-sharp point—rage.

 _Jarlaxle is_ here.

Barrabus had stopped cold, skidded on the icy shingles for a brief moment to the edge of the roof, and looked to the horizon without really seeing the stars.

When the drow next returned to the base he'd found, they would know that someone had broken in. He had the element of surprise, but only for a few more hours, at most. The warehouse wouldn't be the mercenaries' only base of operations, only the most obvious, but now he knew what to look for. He had a window of opportunity and turned around to make the most of it.

It took less than an hour to break the codes, and he spent the rest of the night reading through reports and the ledgers. Contacts, potential sources of information or goods, recent shipments and disturbances to their operations—drow on the surface were still drow. So Bregan D'aerthe kept fastidious records, lest an important factoid be lost with the unfortunate casualty of someone else's ambition.

Barrabus noted that they'd taken interest in a potential Netherese soldier hiding out near the docks. The records said he had a military bearing and an apparent fear of observers—the deserter, perhaps? They'd arranged a meeting to exchange safety for information.

That meeting was at dawn at a bridge by the river; so he hadn't slept, instead getting as much information as he could before sunrise.

And now he waited in the bleak beginnings of daylight. He stood in the shadow of a craggy tree by the riverbank, watching the bridge of crumbling brown stone where the drow and his quarry were planning to meet.

The drow were already there. He wouldn't have seen them if he didn't know where to look, but they had chosen to hide in the longest shadows, where they could approach the bridge without ever having to look into daylight.

The sky warmed almost to a pale yellow before the deserter arrived. He was all limbs and bony angles and had covered his ragged uniform with a brown cloak that was too short for the task. He glanced nervously around, jumping and twisting at small noises and movements from the shadows. He crept along the edge of the river like he wasn't used to being alone and kept craning his head about, fearful of what might be lurking. He was right to be afraid, Barrabus thought with a grin.

The two groups made eye contact, nodded to each other, and started to walk closer to the bridge. Barrabus waited until they were all within twenty feet of him before rushing to intercept. He opted for speed rather than stealth, keeping his hood up. With gloves on and his face in shadows, he could pass as drow for the split second it took to get close enough and drag the man away by his elbow.

"They are not here to talk," he hissed. "It is an ambush." The man's eyes widened as he realized the Barrabus was no dark elf.

Without waiting for a response, Barrabus whirled back to engage the dark elves. It was a risk, hoping his target wouldn't see through the ruse and stab him in the back. Then he was fighting one-to-two and had no time to spare for wondering about it.

"You should have known this trap wouldn't work," he snarled in Common to one of the very confused drow. Then he continued in dark elven. " _The Netherese need him alive_."

As he'd hoped, the drow reverted to the more familiar language to argue that they had no plans to kill him if he proved useful. Barrabus understood, but the deserter would not. The deserter would only hear rapid arguing in an unfamiliar tongue. Barrabus didn't bother continuing the conversation.

Both of the drow were good, but they were unprepared for a fight, much less with an opponent like the one they now faced. It was over in seconds.

Barrabus turned to face the deserter. He was pale and shaking.

"How did you know it was a trap?" He stared at the bodies on the ground, then looked up at Barrabus. In the fight, Barrabus' hood had fallen back and it seemed to take him a moment to take in the grey pallor. The deserter ran and reached for the longsword that hung from his belt.

Before he could use it, Barrabus had drawn a dagger's edge across his throat.

And now he had three bodies to dispose of. He put the deserter in the river; there were plenty of boats and scavengers between here and the sea, so his body would be found before the sun set. The two drow also went into the river, but these he weighed down with loose stones; by the time they were found, they'd have rotted beyond recognition.

As the sound of activity emerged from the nearby streets and the city woke up, Barrabus sighed and leaned against a tree. His day was far from over.

He wandered Luskan until sunset, talking to merchants and spreading rumors, until he had to stagger back to the inn or collapse where he stood.

* * *

As Barrabus the Grey resisted sleep long enough to trap his door again for the first time in ten years, Jarlaxle Baenre was sitting on his floor in the middle of his room on the other side of Luskan, wrapped in a blanket and surrounded by tiny slips of paper that were spiderwebbed with writing.

He'd woken up with his head pulsing in pain and decided that, if Kimmuriel was using this time to arrange a coup, Jarlaxle couldn't wait until he felt better to resist it. So he'd begun planning. Normally he'd have kept all the threads of planning and potential factions sorted in his head, but the steady buzzing made it difficult to focus. After the fourth false start, he'd written names, resources, and tactics down on slips of paper and started arranging them into an impromptu strategy-map which had overflowed from the desk and taken over the rest of the room. He'd only gotten distracted twice, once to close the window and once to start an ill-advised letter of apology. He'd burned the letter, and now the papers were laid in neat lines across the floor.

He leaned back and surveyed his handiwork with a smile as a clear strategy began to form itself in the rows of names. Then the door opened, causing a small breeze that scattered the papers across the floorboards.

Athrogate stood in the doorway, looking concerned and (as he looked at the disorganized pile of scraps) mildly apologetic.

Jarlaxle sighed. "I did not realize you could pick locks," he said, looking mournfully at his scattered papers. "You never cease to surprise me, my friend."

Athrogate blinked. "Did ye float too high and hit yer head on the ceiling?"

Jarlaxle raised an eyebrow and started gathering the sheets of paper that were in reach. "Hardly. Surely I haven't been up here so long for you to worry about a concussion."

"Yer door wasn't locked."

Jarlaxle paused, hand halfway to the sheet that said "Benagio," and tried to review his actions the night before. Then he shrugged.

"You are as observant as ever." Would a confiding grin be too much? he wondered. No, definitely not. "I like to test my soldiers every now and then, to see if they're being properly ambitious. But none tried to kill me in my sleep." He shook his head sadly. "They're getting complacent."  
Athrogate looked unconvinced, and Jarlaxle decided to change the subject.

"Have you seen my good co-captain today?" he asked. If they'd been speaking in drow, he'd have chosen the adjective that meant both "goodly" and "doomed," but in Common he had to forgo the private joke. Athrogate shook his head.

"Nah, and good riddance." The dwarf was as mercenary-minded as any of Jarlaxle's associates, but he had no cause to get along with Kimmuriel. (The paper with his name had been in the "reliable allies" pile.)

Jarlaxle let his grin fade slightly. "I would find it useful to know his activities."

"And yer sending me? I ain't exactly the quiet watcher type."

"Which is why he'll never suspect you to be a deliberate spy." And he'd be a good distraction from whoever Jarlaxle sent to be more subtle. He couldn't counter Kimmuriel's strategy until he knew what it was; normally he'd simply ensure that every strategy he employed had a win-condition, but that level of complexity was beyond his current mental resources.

Athrogate gave him one more concerned look, but then he left. Tugging the blanket close around his shoulders, Jarlaxle began to reassemble his papers.

* * *

Kimmuriel rubbed his temples, trying to banish his growing headache through sheer force of will. After getting confirmation from Jarlaxle's bodyguards that Jarlaxle had been cooped in his room all day and not, therefore, arranging any sort of retaliation against Kimmuriel, Kimmuriel had turned to keeping Bregan D'aerthe running smoothly until Jarlaxle recovered and could take back control. However, by some cruel whim of the gods, today had been nothing but one problem after another.

First, he'd gotten reports that several of their trade partners were calling in debts and others were refusing to do any business at all. The debts he could pay; Bregan D'aerthe hadn't turned Luskan into a self-sustaining venture yet (something that Jarlaxle assured them would happen eventually), but they had enough funds from other projects to keep this one going for now. But Jarlaxle had put a great deal of effort into maintaining consistent lines of trade between his agents in Luskan and the nobles back in Menzoberranzan. If those deteriorated, Kimmuriel had no doubt that the matrons—who viewed Jarlaxle's surface ventures with suspicion—would revoke their grudging support. If they did, Bregan D'aerthe would have to either withdraw from the city or risk retaliation. Kimmuriel considered deliberately courting failure for a moment—the venture in Luskan was only marginally more tolerable than the failure in Calimport—but Jarlaxle's patience with him was far too threadbare for such a scheme. Perhaps he could engineer a return to Menzoberranzan in eight or sixteen years, but not today.

Just as concerning as the recalcitrant merchants was a sudden wave of hostility from near the docks. Several buildings had been vandalized—not significantly, only a few broken windows, but enough to suggest that more was coming—and one of their local informants—some local two-copper fence—had been shunned by several reliable contacts. He claimed that people were nervous because some drow had arranged a murder under the pretense of recruitment, but Kimmuriel didn't know of any such killing. He had told the fence not to return without more concrete information.

Whatever the source of the rumors, it would mean putting more resources into maintaining the careful reputation that Jarlaxle had cultivated with the people in Luskan who knew that drow were here: intimidating enough to be left alone, but trustworthy enough to do business with. Killing potential informants and letting urchins break their windows would damage both.

Athrogate had come and gone. He'd been strangely inquisitive about Kimmuriel's activities for the day. Kimmuriel had tolerated him long enough to confirm that Jarlaxle hadn't left his apartments on the other side of town, then sent him away to investigate the windows. If Athrogate solved it through less-than-diplomatic means, any ire would fall on the dwarf's head. If he failed, then it would be his reputation for competence, not that of any drow, that took the hit.

With that smallest of annoyances dealt with, Kimmuriel returned to more important problems. He only needed to keep things running smoothly until Jarlaxle recovered. Then he could plan what would come next.


	8. Chapter 5

As the nervous farmers lined the road and gruff fishers set out to sea, Barrabus the Grey waited in the shadows of an alleyway near the offices of Tarmikos Navigation & Shipping. It was one of the buildings he'd noted in his first scouting mission, the offices of one Yennan Tarmikos. Tarmikos was a wine and vinegar merchant who had stubbornly refused to abandon his business when Luskan grew wild. He'd been rewarded for his tenacity (and his willingness to exploit the political situation) with a healthy stream of revenue, which he turned into a side business in the form of moneylending. As a result, he was one of a handful of locals to whom Bregan D'aerthe had turned for assistance in building their surface network.

From his information gathering yesterday, Barrabus knew that Tarmikos wasn't above shifting from moneylending into predatory loans when the opportunity arose and had already been threatened by several loan sharks who saw him as moving in on their territory. Tarmikos had reacted by redoubling his efforts and recruiting the straggling remains of the city watch to harass his self-proclaimed competition. He would not take kindly to what Barrabus was about to do.

Despite his newly acquired criminal leanings, Tarmikos was still a merchant at heart. He took the same route to and from the office every day. Barrabus had shadowed him the evening before to get a sense of the route, and now he waited in an alleyway with a good view of the street.

Tarmikos passed the alleyway. He was a wrinkled stringbean of a man with cold, slightly bulging eyes and a sharp chin. Barrabus was careful to keep his cowl up as he emerged long enough to grab the man by the collar and tug him into the alleyway.

"Do not yell," he said softly, placing a dagger against the back of the man's neck. He'd heard enough drow speak that he could duplicate the accent. Soft vowels, harsh on the sibilants. "You will listen."

A stifled growl rumbled in Tarmikos' throat, but he said nothing.

"We owe you nothing, understand?" In fact, Bregan D'aerthe owed Tarmikos quite a lot. A man of half his pride might still fight them for that amount of money. With Tarmikos, Barrabus had no doubt. "We will continue to do business with you, on _our_ terms, and you will be grateful for it."

The merchant grimaced but said nothing. _Good_. Maybe he was smart enough to cause the drow some real trouble after Barrabus let him go. With a shove, he tossed the merchant back into the sunlit street. Then he scrambled up the side of the building to watch the street below.

Barrabus grinned as Tarmikos stalked away, his spine stiff with poorly restrained rage and offended pride. Satisfied with his handiwork, Barrabus started walking west. His day had only just begun.

* * *

Kimmuriel had gone through nine different imaginary conversations wherein he explained to Jarlaxle that no, truly, he hadn't _tried_ to make their surface operations implode, they just _had_. So far, not a single scenario had ended the way Kimmuriel had hoped it would. This would have been disappointing, had Kimmuriel actually been trying to sabotage the venture. Now, when he was genuinely trying to keep it running, it was _infuriating_.

He'd finally gotten more information about what had gotten the dregs of Luskan's underbelly into such a paranoid fury. The corpse of some Netherese soldier that Bregan D'aerthe had been hoping to purchase information from had been found stabbed to death in the river. Kimmuriel would very much have liked to spoken with the agents he'd sent to the meeting, but they were eluding all of his messengers.

Athrogate had managed to find some urchins who claimed that a strange man had paid them to graffiti one of the Bregan D'aerthe offices, but they were unable to provide a description beyond "scary, but he paid real well." In a stroke of almost Jarlaxian insight, Kimmuriel had Athrogate offer the urchins a bounty if the man tried to hire them again, rather than making an example of what happened to those who interfered with the business of drow. The coins themselves were of a foreign mint—Baldur's Gate, if Kimmuriel had to guess—which meant, of course, that they could have come from anyone. Luskan itself had stopped minting coins, and even Jarlaxle still lacked the audacity to begin doing such a thing. (At least, Kimmuriel hoped that he did. Perhaps such a scheme had simply not occurred to him yet.)

He had also not heard anything from one of their offices, a warehouse on the South Bank. It was run by one of Jarlaxle's favorites, Maslyn Despar. He was enthusiastic about this whole surface venture, if not nearly as meticulous in his duties as Kimmuriel would have liked, and his failure to send a daily report was typical, but one more annoyance than Kimmuriel wished to deal with right now.

 _And speaking of annoyances..._ there was a quiet knock at the door. A wizard, one of their recent recruits. He was of unremarkable skill, and Kimmuriel had not bothered to commit his name to memory—Nillyn? Nilomyn?—but he was competent enough for a simple divination spell and easily intimidated into silence.

"You summoned me, Captain?"

 _Either come into the office or walk away, stop lingering in the doorway._ Kimmuriel kept his lips sealed but raised in eyebrow in a manner that, he hoped, conveyed the appropriate mixture of expectation and contempt.

Nilraen coughed and stepped into the room. At a pointed glance from Kimmuriel, he closed the door behind him.

"You must find someone. He may be a corpse by now, but if he isn't, I must know his location." Kimmuriel slid a piece of paper across the desk. "His name is Artemis Entreri. A human. I've written a description there, if you need it. You are to report your findings to me, and _only_ to me." This was likely unnecessary. All logic suggested Entreri was dead, but Kimmuriel would take whatever scraps of peace of mind he could find, and a confirmed corpse would provide that.

The wizard nodded earnestly but didn't pick up the piece of paper. Kimmuriel stared at him with what he considered to be a generous amount of patience, then slid the paper further across the desk.

"Ah," said the wizard. "You see—the thing is—do you have anything _else_?" He didn't do anything so obvious as bite his lip or shuffle his feet, for such physical tells were trained out of well-born males early on, but Kimmuriel could tell that he wanted to. "I usually work with a stronger connection. Hair, blood, an old shirt. Even a picture would help."

Kimmuriel's familiarity with arcane magic was limited, but he was certain that Bregan D'aerthe mages had found targets with nothing but a name before. He said as such, but Nimphyn started shaking his head before Kimmuriel had finished his sentence.

"That requires a great deal more power," he said. "If I were working with other mages, perhaps..." he trailed off, clearly aware that Kimmuriel's demand for secrecy would allow no such thing.

It occurred to Kimmuriel that, in the past, Jarlaxle would have wanted his mages to have as much ability to find Entreri as possible, even when the human didn't want to be found. Perhaps there would have something more suitable in Jarlaxle's office. There was a small quiver in the back of his mind at the idea of yet another transgression against Jarlaxle, but he had already gone this far.

"I will see what I can find." The wizard nodded, but did not move. "Now get out of my office."

* * *

Jarlaxle lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to detangle plans in his mind. It would be easier if he stood up, if he wrote them down somewhere, but the will to do so somehow eluded him. He blamed the winter chill that had permeated the room. A sneer in his mind accused him of hedonism, but Jarlaxle dismissed it. Being cold would interfere with his cognitive prowess more than lack of paper could, and the blankets were too warm to abandon without good cause.

Most of Kimmuriel's closest allies were elsewhere, in Menzoberranzan. Jarlaxle would have a much better chance of success if he stopped Kimmuriel now, rather than letting their dispute become a drawn-out campaign. He adjusted a pillow, wriggling as a fresh draft laid siege to his fortress. Surely he had closed all the windows. Was it worth getting out of bed to make sure?

Jarlaxle would normally have been confident in his ability to kill Kimmuriel himself, but not in his current state of unbalance. And he had yet to truly remember anything. What would happen when he did? A flood of memories? A trickle of awareness that could distract him at a crucial moment? Going alone would be too risky. There were a handful of loyal soldiers in Luskan he could trust for backup, but only if he could protect them somehow from psionics.

Wearing down Kimmuriel's defenses and then going in a final strike team would ensure the best chances of success. Hopefully, such a battle would last less than a day. If he marshalled his resources today, planned overnight, and sent the first wave of fodder at dawn, he would have secured the city by sunset tomorrow.

He mentally superimposed a map of Luskan over the ceiling, considering the locations of the most important bases. There were the southern warehouses, and the office on the river. Had that crack in the plaster always been there?

Distracted. Distraction. He needed a distraction. Could he hire mercenaries to wear Kimmuriel down? He snorted at the thought, but it was one way to avoid drawing notice before he was ready to attack. He could certainly find someone suitable in Luskan if he had the funds. The surface operation was somewhat lacking in currency, though. He ran numbers in his head and grimaced at the result.

What funds did he have stored in the northern outpost? It would be in the records on his desk.

His desk was on the other side of the room. He would need to get up and check them.

He stared at the ceiling and listened to the howling wind.

Tentative knocking provided the impetus to pry himself out of the bed. He opened the door, to the apparent surprise of the Bregan D'aerthe soldier—Veldrin Difar—who was crouched down, preparing to slip a note under it. His nose was roughly level with Jarlaxle's waist, and in infravision, Jarlaxle could see heat rushing to Veldrin's face and the tips of his ears. A small thing, but a balm to his wounded ego nonetheless. Jarlaxle winked, and that seemed to break Veldrin's stupor, making him stand up rapidly and hold out the envelope. Jarlaxle had found it helpful to discourage his agents from the staring-at-boots variety of respect that drow matrons favored, so Veldrin stared very carefully at his chin instead.

Jarlaxle spun the envelope in his hands but did not open it.

"Do you know the contents?" he asked. Veldrin nodded, clearly relieved to be switching to a conversation more within his realm of expertise.

"Captain Oblodra says you're busy with a new venture, so he canceled or rescheduled several of your existing obligations. That's a list of which ones."

"How proactive of him." Jarlaxle raised an eyebrow. Interesting, that Kimmuriel had chosen 'new venture' instead of 'recovering from illness.' It was better for morale, Jarlaxle supposed. Looking at the list, it became obvious that Kimmuriel wasn't expecting Jarlaxle to return to a normal workload anytime soon. Most of the important meetings had been reassigned to someone else. Another dozen had been canceled or postponed.

Concern for Jarlaxle's mental state, or an effort to keep him out of the loop? Jarlaxle felt a tug of uneasiness as he considered the damage Kimmuriel could do by keeping him sidelined.

He eyed the canceled meetings. There were a few which he felt confident in handling, even in his current state of distraction. Arranging to increase their imports of certain foods, for example, should be simple enough; it was an arrangement of mutual profit, and all that was left was to hammer out the details.

And if Jarlaxle remembered correctly, that particular merchant had a few sidelines which could be of help with Jarlaxle's other, more pressing problem. He considered his tangled plans for a moment in this light and smiled.

Veldrin, still awaiting a response, looked faintly alarmed at Jarlaxle's sudden change in expression.

"My thanks for your timely delivery," Jarlaxle said. Veldrin nodded and retreated, and Jarlaxle managed to maintain his grin even after the door swung shut.

The cold air against his bare shoulders gave new urgency to being dressed. He assembled his outfit, being certain to put on the ring that neutralized most poisons, especially those favored for hand-crossbows. Anti-psionics, protections from tactics favored by drow...was he missing anything? Being truly prepared for every situation would have weighed him down with so much jewelry that he couldn't walk. However, he'd gotten very good at predicting what he'd need on any given day, and that had only served to enhance his illusion of being prepared for anything. Not for the first time, he wished it was more than an illusion. As a last thought, he added protection from cold. It did nothing to lift the chill from his bones.

Illusion may have been a cobweb-thin protection, but it settled over him with comforting familiarity nonetheless. Layer by layer, he became himself.

* * *

Jarlaxle leaned against a crumbling wall to watch the docks and review his plan. He'd prepared it as he walked, letting the salt air and piercing sunlight wake him up.

He froze as movement on the docks caught his eye. There was a person writhing in a net on the pier. He watched, breathless, as the fishermen beat their catch with oars until it stopped squirming. Then he blinked, and the net was filled with nothing but fish, scales glittering in the sunlight. He kept staring at the net, at the fish, at the dock, waiting for the image to reappear, but it didn't.

Trying to banish the image from his mind, Jarlaxle turned to considering the best conversational ploys. He'd brought some of his less important magical trinkets—nothing someone could use against dark elves, of course, but some elemental resistance and similar things—to use as collateral, if necessary. It would be better if he could build on their existing business relationship. Jarlaxle was wary of going further into debt to a surface merchant, but scouring Bregan D'aerthe of Kimmuriel's influence had to take priority.

Charm first, leaning heavily on how well their dealings had gone in the past. He could offer favorable terms for the deal they were already planning, followed by an offer of collateral if necessary. Yes, that would do. Having a plan, even a bloody and desperate one, was comforting, and Jarlaxle managed to walk into the offices of Yennan Tarmikos with his usual swagger.

It lasted roughly two seconds before Tarmikos himself, pointed finger quivering in fury, shouted "You!" and stood up behind his desk with a scowl.

Jarlaxle paused, mouth open in an aborted salutation. He looked to his left, to his right, and behind him, just in case, before coming to the unfortunate conclusion that Tarmikos was, indeed, yelling at him.

"Good morning, Master Tarmikos. You seem—"

"You think you can just come in here and smile and offer me a deal, you half-plucked parrot?" The old man puffed himself up like an angry cat. "I've pissed off murderers, and I've crawled, half-drowned, out of a hurricane, and I've seen a green dragon melt my caravan like it was butter in a skillet, so don't think that I can be intimidated by the likes of _you_. I've been here since before you crawled to the surface and I'll still be here after you're gone."

The sound of pens scratching against paper didn't cease. Jarlaxle noted that everyone around them was looking very carefully at their paperwork and trying not to draw attention to themselves.

"I believe there's been some kind of misunderstanding, Master Tarmikos," Jarlaxle said. "No one is trying to intimidate you." _If you insist, I could demonstrate what intimidation looks like._ A few daggers here, a fireball there... this was supposed to be the _easy_ part of the plan, dammit.

"Sending your shadow to threaten me in an alleyway wasn't intimidation? Or perhaps I misunderstood an invitation for tea and cookies."

 _What in all the hells is Kimmuriel playing at?_

"Ah. I'm afraid that agent was merely supposed to be watching your movements and ensure your safety, but he must have misunderstood his instructions." He grinned ruefully, inviting Tarmikos to commiserate. "If we have a flaw, it is encouraging excessive initiative in our soldiers. Please, I assure you that the agent who insulted you will be—" he paused here, hoping Tarmikos' imagination would fill in the gaps. "—appropriately chastised."

Tarmikos puckered his lips and was silent for a moment. Jarlaxle hoped he was calculating just how much his pride was worth and if he could really afford to fight them.

"You do that," Tarmikos eventually said. "But until you do, we got nothing to talk about."

Jarlaxle tipped his hat and left, cursing internally. In the back of his mind was a faint awareness of how _easy_ it would be to burn Tarmikos' offices to the ground. Wasteful, perhaps, but the cheerful simplicity of destruction was a glittering temptation nonetheless.

But Jarlaxle hadn't reached his position by only having one plan at a time. He let the sharp breeze cool his temper as he walked. There were other moneylenders in Luskan, but before he spoke to them, he wanted to check in with some of his more reliable agents. If Kimmuriel was making a sudden change in Bregan D'aerthe's diplomatic tactics, Jarlaxle needed to know about it.

When he arrived at the South Bank warehouse, he found the door unlocked. For a brief moment as he walked in, a different warehouse flashed in his vision. There was yellow lantern light, and a familiar cloaked figure stood at the far end of the room. He took a shuddering breath and blinked, and the colors resolved themselves into the unlit room. Jarlaxle scanned the room again, but the image didn't reappear. He was alone.

However, the warehouse had not been left unchanged. Several crates of grain and fruit preserves had been disturbed, and several sacks of flour had been sliced open. He ran up the stairs and found similar destruction there. The books had been ransacked and several pieces of furniture overturned. Shards of blue glass crunched under his boots. The smell of old blood hung in the air.

There was a corpse leaning against the south wall: Maslyn Despar. Jarlaxle sagged against the desk as a chill that had nothing to do with the weather crept over him. Competent, adventurous, and ambitious, Maslyn had been in charge of maintaining this outpost and sending regular updates. His reports tended to be sparse on written detail, but the sketches he'd include in the margins more than made up for it. Jarlaxle knelt to check his wounds. A quick slice to the right arm and another across the neck. Maslyn had been a good fighter—whoever he'd fought had been better, and wielding two blades. This left a very narrow field of potential killers, but Jarlaxle had his suspicions. Maslyn had been one of his most dependable agents in entrenching Bregan D'aerthe in Luskan, after all. If Kimmuriel wished to destabilize Jarlaxle's network, this would have been a good place to start.

Jarlaxle pulled the body out of the patch of morning sunlight and started organizing the remaining books. More than half were gone, though burned or stolen it was impossible to say. There was a large pile of ashes in the hearth. Jarlaxle suspected that had been done specifically to obscure which ledgers had been taken. He opened one at random to familiarize himself with the kind of information that might have been stolen.

He hadn't been expecting Kimmuriel to act this quickly or this viciously. Kimmuriel was methodical, academic. He didn't care to rush. Clearly, Jarlaxle needed to reevaluate what kind of threat his lieutenant might pose.

He ran his finger down the line of numbers and considered how best to adapt his plans. His hoped-for decisive strike had been preempted. If Kimmuriel could anticipate this plan, who was to say that he wouldn't have already undermined Jarlaxle's next plan, or the one after that, or the one after that?

He slammed the ledger shut with a shudder, sending a cloud of dust up from its pages. He hadn't felt this uncertain in decades, nay, _centuries_. Before he'd formed Bregan D'aerthe, before he'd left House Baenre, before he'd made himself untouchable.

No, not untouchable. Jarlaxle knew better than that. But because he'd been off-balance, wounded even, he'd made the mistake of a first-year Melee Magthere student. _Speed is no substitute for strategy. If you attack without first diverting your opponent's blades, you will find yourself impaled upon your own ambition._

Jarlaxle couldn't possibly hope to divert an attack if he didn't know what direction it was coming from. He considered the possibilities for scouting, but was interrupted by a piercing chirp from one of his rings.

Someone was breaking into his office.

* * *

At previous places, he'd ingratiated himself with the locals by buying their drinks. Everyone knew, of course, that he was trying to bribe them for information. It was part of the game. Now it was time for something a little more subtle.

He'd deliberately chosen a place with dirty windows. In the dim light, it was harder to notice the corpse-like pallor that would reveal too much about the nature of his employers. He'd faked a large scar as well, to discourage staring. If anyone did look at his face too closely, they'd remember the burn, not the features underneath it. A slumped shoulder and the broad vowels of a northerner completed the subterfuge.

One fellow patron settled nearby. Barrabus gave him a companionable nod, noting the cracked mud on the man's boots and trouser legs.

"Hell of day to be out in this weather," the man said. "What's yer excuse?"

"Eh, you know." Barrabus shrugged. "Lookin' for work."

"You in shipping?"

"Shipping, loading, digging. If it pays silver, I'll give it a shot." He shuddered slightly, careful not to exaggerate the movement. "Well, not digging no more. Not after what happened with the last one."

The man froze in a way Barrabus recognized as an attempt to hide intense curiosity. "Digging?" he asked, a hair too casual. Barrabus disguised his triumphant grin as a grimace before taking another sip of the watered-down mead.

"Yeah. Got paid to do tunnel-work for some—" He looked back and forth fearfully. "—some out-of-town sorts. So they could connect their buildings without steppin' into daylight or something. Only, they decided to pay us in steel 'stead of gold. They missed me, though, and I been looking for a cheap ride out of here ever since."

From the calculation and fear on the man's expression, Barrabus knew he'd chosen his story well. Being killed by one's employers was a very real fear for anyone working on illegal or secret construction projects, and the list of potential culprits was short. Drow had a reputation, and every added thread of fear and distrust among the locals would make it harder for them to do business.

"Well," the man looked grim. "You'll want to avoid the areas 'round Neverwinter and Port Llast. I hear there's been some skirmishes with ghouls or the like. Whoever they are, they ain't been too discerning about who they kill."

"I heard it was demons," said someone else. "But I don't give that much credence. A few tieflings, mayhap."

Icy claws in his chest and Barrabus couldn't breathe for a moment. _Not undead_ , he knew _. Netherese_. And Alegni was probably with them. If he reached Luskan and Barrabus was still here, he might insist on keeping him close.

For the first time since he'd realized who was running Luskan, Barrabus felt as trapped as he did anywhere else. Once he completed his revenge here, there would be nothing left.

And time was running out.

* * *

When Kimmuriel emerged from Jarlaxle's office, he stopped. Jarlaxle stood, leaning against the wall, watching him with a mild expression. He looked as confident and polished as ever; if Kimmuriel hadn't already known about the memories he'd dredged back up, he wouldn't have noticed the tension in Jarlaxle's shoulders or the ghost of exhaustion under his eyes.

"Just who I was looking for," Jarlaxle said, beaming. "I wanted to ensure you weren't having too many difficulties in my absence." His eyes lingered on the door of the office Kimmuriel had just left. "You seem to be making yourself comfortable."

It took every ounce of willpower Kimmuriel possessed not to pat his pockets and make sure no incriminating items were visible.

"I needed the most recent inventory from the warehouse on South Bank. It wasn't in my files, and I thought perhaps it had been left on your desk."

A flash of _something_ , too fast for Kimmuriel to read, leaked through the eyepatch. Jarlaxle chuckled.

"Perhaps Maslyn was delayed in delivering it," Jarlaxle suggested.

Kimmuriel kept his face blank. He had assumed Jarlaxle was too distracted regaining his memories to take revenge, but if he were wrong...if Jarlaxle wanted to kill him, the South Bank offices would be one of the first resources he'd recruit. Perhaps their lack of communication was the first step in a bloody coup. Kimmuriel could imagine it as easily as movements on a sava board. Jarlaxle making careful moves, cutting off Kimmuriel's information sources one-by-one, until finally closing in for the kill. It was _exactly_ the kind of conflict that Quenthel would have hoped to get from revealing their brief alliance.

"If you wish to keep your organization alive, we cannot start working against each other," Kimmuriel reminded him. "Maintaining surface operations is difficult enough without our subordinates going rogue."

Jarlaxle's lips thinned for a moment, and Kimmuriel reconsidered the wisdom of reminding Jarlaxle that one of his subordinates—Kimmuriel himself—had already gone rogue. Twice now, in fact. Although both of them were in the habit of discounting the incident with the Crystal Shard as a single incident under extenuating circumstances, if Jarlaxle thought he saw a pattern developing, Kimmuriel was certain that he would be compelled to prevent it.

"I have no wish to work against you, Kimmuriel, not when we're both better served by cooperating." A less confident leader would have followed that with ' _a fact you would do well to remember_.' Jarlaxle simply smiled.

"Of course, captain." At that moment, Kimmuriel would have gladly sacrificed his distant relatives and several useful subordinates if it would make Jarlaxle believe in his good faith again. Of course, he could do that with psionics, but that the action itself would belie the message—the realization had the bitter tang of irony to it, and he absented himself as quickly as possible.

Kimmuriel realized halfway down the hall that, in their conversations in the past week, he'd never gotten the chance to justify his actions. Jarlaxle hadn't asked for an explanation, so Kimmuriel hadn't offered one. It was a faint hope, but perhaps it would mend this nameless thing that he seemed to have destroyed.

He looked back down the hall and opened his mouth to speak, but Jarlaxle was already gone.

Nimfein was waiting in his office when Kimmuriel returned. "Did you get it?" The wizard sounded eager, almost hungry, and Kimmuriel smirked. A secret commission from one of his captains had to be an exciting opportunity.

He thrust the wooden flute into the wizard's hands. The wizard nearly dropped it, then examined the carvings closely. What he was looking for, Kimmuriel couldn't possibly guess, but he wished the wizard would look for it somewhere else.

"Will that be sufficient?" Kimmuriel tried very hard to imply with his tone that the answer had to be _yes_. The wizard looked at him plaintively.

"This is enchanted. And it's had multiple owners."

"Can you do this task or not? Must I draw you a map?" Kimmuriel had meant this to sound sarcastic, but the wizard shrugged.

"A picture would be better."

Kimmuriel pinched the bridge of his nose. "If I draw a picture of the target, will you go away?"

Frentic nodding. Kimmuriel sighed and pulled out a scrap of parchment and some charcoal. Ink was expensive and he wouldn't waste it on this. His hand paused as he realized he had only a dim memory of what the human looked like. Aware that he was being watched, he made his best guess—furrowed brows, a harsh line of a scowl, and Kimmuriel was almost certain there had been facial hair. A quick scribbled hairline completed the sketch. He pushed it across the desk at the wizard, who caught it before it landed on the floor.

The wizard looked at the sketch, then at Kimmuriel's face. He opened his mouth, then seemed to think the better of it. A properly deferential nod, and Kimmuriel was finally, blissfully alone.

* * *

Barrabus the Grey read through his pilfered ledgers and ate preserved strawberries with a spoon. He'd originally stolen several of the jars from the Bregan D'aerthe office because he thought they might be disguising some less innocuous valuables. That hadn't been the case. However, it did mean he didn't need to interrupt his reading to find actual food. Two empty jars—one raspberry, one apricot—sat next to the stack of books he'd already examined.

Someone had forgotten to tell the gods it was spring—light reflected against falling snowflakes to illuminate the city outside. Barrabus scowled at them through the window and considered how best to escalate his revenge. He'd been working in an ever-tightening spiral. It wasn't clean, wasn't efficient. Whittling away at the organization Jarlaxle had spent centuries building was a death in a thousand tiny pieces. It seemed only appropriate, after all, to return Jarlaxle's gift to him in equal kind.

He'd taken the ledgers from the past few months, as well as some older ones for comparison. He'd been hoping to find in them Bregan D'aerthe's most profitable revenue stream—it would be the target that would hurt Jarlaxle the most—but the numbers weren't adding up. If he was understanding the ledgers correctly, this operation wasn't nearly as profitable as the Calimport one had been. It had been improving over the past several years, but not enough to make it self-sustaining. Barrabus could only assume the operating funds for Luskan were being pulled from other branches of Bregan D'aerthe. In addition to leaving him with a lack of potential targets, the idea itched at him. _This isn't a profitable outpost. Why has Jarlaxle not packed up and left already?_

He frowned and re-added the column, but it came to the same result. Every instinct he had screamed that he was missing something.

He would only get one chance to kill Jarlaxle—unforeseen complications could ruin everything. If he wanted to do this right, he would have to avoid any direct confrontation until he had more information.

As he took a bite of jam, he felt the prickle of magic on the back of his neck. Bregan D'aerthe, no doubt, trying to find whoever had broken into their offices. It it was harder than he remembered to summon the force of will that would push away any attempts to scry him. (It seemed to have no effect on Claw's hold, and so he had fallen out of practice.) As he built up a mental wall against the spell, he wrapped a blanket around himself, hiding himself from view in case the scrying was successful. Even if they knew where he was, he could maintain some element of surprise.

After a few moments, the prickling stopped. Either he had successfully deflected the spell or the mage had gotten the information they needed and ended their scrying.

If it was the latter, he only had a few minutes before Jarlaxle found him. He gathered up his papers and the jar and climbed out the window, into the drifting night.


End file.
